Scamp and I: A Story of City By-Ways

The time was the height of the London season for 1875; the height of that gay time when the parks, and streets, and shops are full, when pleasure-promoters are busy keeping up a fresh supply of every form of entertainment, when pleasure-seekers are flocking to the garden parties, and strawberry parties, the operas, and theatres, and all other amusements provided for them; when the world—the world at least of Regent Street, and Piccadilly, of Eaton Square, and all Belgravia—looks so rich and prosperous, so full of life and all that makes life enjoyable.
It was that gay time when no one thinks of gloom, when ambitious men dream of fame, and vain women of vanity, when the thoughtless think less than any other time, and when money seems to be the one god that rules in every breast.
This was the time in the merry month of May, when one afternoon, at the hour when Regent Street is brightest and fullest, a little ragged urchin of about ten pushed his way boldly through the crowd of carriages and people surrounding Swan and Edgar’s, and began staring eagerly and fearlessly in at the windows.
He was the only ragged child, the only representative of poverty, within sight, and he looked singularly out of place, quite a little shadow in the midst of the splendid carriages, and brilliant and prosperous men and women.
The few who noticed him wondered languidly what brought him there, why he intruded his disreputable little person in the midst of scenes and people with which he never had, and never could have, anything in common.
The little fellow seemed to guess the thoughts which a few in the crowd favoured him with, and in his own way to resent them. In and out among the rich and fashionable people his small head kept bobbing, his agile body kept pushing.
He avoided the police, he escaped unhurt from under the impatient horses’ legs, he was never stationary, and yet he was always there. He pressed his dirty little form against more than one fine lady’s dress, and received more than one sharp reprimand, and sharper tap on the head, from the powdered and liveried footmen.